In this lecture I will challenge the presentist bias of historical thinking captured in Benedetto Croce’s assertion that “all history is contemporary history.” I will propose treating historical knowledge as a form of anticipatory knowledge, capable of not only narrating our past but also illuminating contours of our future. Through analysis of new objects such as plastiglomerates, recently created time capsules as well as engaging with contemporary artworks, such as Maarten Vanden Eynde’s „The Museum of Forgotten Past“ (2012), I will argue for the importance of identifying and analyzing „anticipatory historical sources.“  As markers of the future, they are crucial for constructing a future-oriented understanding of our past.

By introducing the concept of anticipatory historical thinking, I will explore a preventive dimension of historical knowledge that might enhance both individual and collective resilience, i.e. our capacity to adapt and thrive amidst perpetual crises. The discussion extends to the ethical dimensions of historical research, reflecting on the historian’s „duty to anticipate“ in the face of escalating and multiplying crises and examining the „right to the future tense“ as articulated by Shoshana Zuboff.

In my attempt to build a systematic project of anticipatory history that focuses on ontology (exploring anticipatory historical sources), epistemology (reflecting on anticipatory historical thinking) and ethics (meditation on historians’ anticipatory duties and anticipatory emptions and virtues, such as critical hope and trust), this lecture seeks not only to advocate reorientating history toward the future but also to empower historians’ imagination and their hidden talent to speculate on various scenarios of the future.

Anmeldung für Zoom unter: theoriezentrale-geschichte@uni-bielefeld.de